Over 140,000 homes without power in Florida due to Hurricane Idalia

[August 30, 2023]  (Reuters) - More than 140,000 homes and businesses were without power in Florida on Wednesday as Category 3 hurricane Idalia slammed the state, according to data from PowerOutage.us. 

Steve Pizzano helps board up a friend's souvenir shop ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Idalia in Clearwater Beach, Florida, U.S., August 29, 2023. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida as an "extremely dangerous" Category 3 storm after millions of residents evacuated or hunkered down in homes and shelters to await the arrival of a life-threatening storm surge.

Evacuations were ordered in 28 of Florida's 67 counties as of late Tuesday. Most of the state and parts of Georgia and South Carolina are under storm warnings or advisories.

The utility with the most outages was Duke Energy with over 40,000 customers without power, followed by Florida Power & Light Company at more than 16,000.

Tampa Electric on Tuesday said about 3,000 people, including line crews, tree trimmers and damage assessors, are traveling to Florida to help restore power after the storm passes.

Here are the major outages by utility:

Power Companies Outages

Duke Energy 44,687

Florida Power & Light Company 16,627

Talquin Electric Cooperative 15,707

Central Florida Electric Cooperative 15,375

Clay Electric Coop 13,082

City of Tallahassee 11,023

Total Out 144,625

(Reporting by Brijesh Patel and Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Porter)

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